Video interview: Bethesda's Pete Hines on WET

We're calling it "this year's Mirror's Edge" -- WET is dripping with style, but will its unconventional controls and arcade-inspired combo system jive with mainstream gamers? We chatted with Bethesda's Pete Hines to talk about the publisher's late involvement with the A2M project. Below is a text excerpt of the entire video interview:

What does WET stand for?WET is short for wetworks, which is a CIA term for operations where your hands are literally going to get wet with blood. We want you, as the player, to always be shooting, always be taking people out, whether it's with your guns or your sword. You're running around walls, jumping, spinning, sliding. It's about comboing together cool moves to take out your enemies and doing in this cool 70s Grindhouse look.

What gives WET its Grindhouse feel?You really get that Grindhouse feel from the VO work from folks like Eliza Dushku, voice of Ruby (the character you play), Malcolm McDowell. There is a lot of music in the game, both from Brian LeBarton, who works with Beck, created an original soundtrack for the game that's kind of really cool and hip and funky; and then layered on top of that are all these tracks we got from indie bands that have this cool rockabilly type sound that fit really well with both the original soundtrack and with the game.

How was Eliza Dushku selected for the lead role? She's got a really good voice and a really good personality that I think helps Ruby's personality come out. She's just a really good fit for the kind of character that we wanted Ruby to be in the game.

What's Bethesda's role in producing the game?Bethesda got involved with WET early this year, in February or March, so the game was a long ways towards completion by the time we hooked up with A2M, and said "we want to help you guys bring this game out." Duppy Demetrius, who wrote a couple of seasons of 24, is the writer of the main quest in WET. So all of these guys A2M had gone out to on their own and said "these are the kind of folks we want involved." It's just a game that's got style. It's a game that's fun to play. When they brought it and showed it to us, we all wanted to take a turn with the controller, playing the game.

Is Bethesda moving away from internally-produced games?We've never been focused on a developer versus a publisher -- we've always been both for the almost 25 years we've been in business. I think the difference is, that the things we're best known for are our internally developed titles, which we've published. But we've been working with external developers for a really long time. We continue to look for the right folks to work with and the kind of games that we want and the sort of studios that are able to manage quality on their own. I think a studio like A2M is a great example of that:really motivated bunch of guys that had a clear vision for the kind of game they wanted to make and didn't need us to come in and say "we don't know what we're doing, please help us." They knew what they wanted to do; we just kind of helped them execute it and get it to completion.